How often do you reload a save?

[DarkSchneider]

Wait a minute, that's not how it happened...

Most of us have been guilty of it at one time or another, something terrible and catastrophic happens to out civilization, so we go back twenty years or so to right the wrong. The question is, how often do you do this, and should it be considered cheating?

Well, I'm not as bad about it as I was in the Civ I days, but I still reload with moderate frequency in Civ IV. Generally I won't reload for a very long time, then reload many times to try and alter a crucial piece of history.

 

[benjai]

the bloody reload times are too long to do it too frequently...

 

[Stellaaa]

Sure it's cheating. But I do all the time.
Don't like what the goody hut gave up? Reload.
And I must say, the barbarians in CivIV are one tough lot. Reload.
Can't take that barbarian city with 3 war chariots? Reload and wait for another one.

And I'd probably do it more but for the previously mentioned bloody reload times.

 

[Vatec]

Depends on the purpose of the game I'm playing.

If I'm experimenting and trying to learn a new tactic or strategy, I'll reload a lot. I'll reload the original starting position and try a different approach to see what works better or if there were any clues I missed that would have caused me to choose a different approach.

If I'm playing on a low difficulty setting just for the heck of it, I'll reload if I lose an experienced unit or a city or a critical wonder. Because it's fun to take over entire continents using the same six units you built at the dawn of time (properly upgraded, of course).

If I'm playing to see how good I am, I won't reload at all. Or I will do a quicksave when I see a battle that I don't intend to fight and then fight it out once, just to see how close my guess on casualties was. And then I reload and proceed with my original plan.

 

[Duelingground]

No reloads, deal with the problem instead. It's made me a much better player.

If I lose, so be it, and it sometimes ends that way. I've definitely learned a lot from several of my losses.

But when I win, it's all the sweeter.

 

[Kerrang]

I normally save just before declaring war if I am uncertain of the other Civilizations capabilities. Once the war gets rolling for a few turns, I seldom go back and reload, especially if it is late in the game. It is only on those rare occasions when the enemy is far more powerful than I had thought they would be that I will go back and take a few more turns to build up, or research that crucial tech that I need to make a good showing.

At the very beginning of the game, I will sometimes reload as well, but only when I make a mistake in placing my initial city, and there is a much more suitable location nearby. As someone else mentioned, the load times are simply too long to reload frequently, but I do not consider reloading to be cheating.

 

[Artanis]

I've only reloaded once, because getting your butt kicked is a learning experience, and you don't get any better by having things always go your way.

The one time I DID reload was because I had a brainfart and invaded the Germans during the Tank era...and subsequently had his Panzers EXTERMINATE my entire invasion force in three turns . However, since I had absolute, total, and utter naval superiority, they couldn't touch me, so all that would have happened was the two of us glaring at each other until Frederik decided to talk and we could sign a peace treaty. I considered my lesson learned and reloaded so I could get on with the game

 

[johnny5000]

I always save right before a war, but I haven't actually gone back and reloaded.

Sometimes I'll save right before I try something intentionally stupid, like declaring war on everyone and sending out random nukes, just to see what would happen, but I don't think that really counts.

The last time I did a save-reload that could possibly be "cheating" was when I set one of my cities in the middle of nowhere to build Broadway, and forgot about it. My intent was to let it build for a while til I could afford to rush the rest of the production, and then rush it. About 20 turns later I got notice that another civ built it because I completely forgot to rush it, so I reloaded the autosave, and paid for Broadway, which was my intent all along, but since I had other things on my mind, I forgot.

 

[Landmonitor]

I agree with Johnny5000, if I just forget to do something that I completely intended to do, I'll let myself, but if there isn't a recent autosave or manual save, I don't worry about it, there aren't too many things that will completely ruin a game just for one mistake. A good example would be when you intended to move previously fortified city-defence units that were hanging out with your siege force, but got distracted by some build orders and ended your turn with only a half-strength city raider garrissoning a city you just sieged for 6 turns. That would be a good reload candidate, but even then, if there's no recent save, the city will be alot easier to take the second time and you're only a few buildings and one good city raider the worse for it... not really worth worrying about, but then I don't get to play that often, and my play time is valuable and not worth wasting on waiting for loading to happen.

When people reload alot, well, that really grinds my gears!

 

[Memphus]

For an interesting discussion on reloading:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=144352

 

[STDIO]

I don't reload too often. But sometimes something happens and I just have to reload.
Like losing a fight where I had a 98% chance to win, or accidentaly making wierd actions (like declaring war instead of moving my worker one square left...).
I don't really consider that cheating though, after all, beyond Noble the AI is cheating against you, so no reason not to "cheat back" if you feel like it.

 

[Smirk]

I chose never, but don't really care to think about it in context of "right". If I make some critical error like misjudging the AI agression and they show up at my border with a force I can't handle I'd sooner start a new game with that lesson learned.

 

[tigerden27]

There are really only two times I reload.

1) As a learning experience. I'm a builder by nature and at one time I was trying to increase my warmongering skills. So I would play half a dozen games declaring war as soon as I thought I had an even chance. As opposed to only going to war when I knew I could win. I would reload if the war turned out disastrously for me. Wait few more turns, figure out what I should have done and try again. After doing this for a while I learned when to declare war to better precision. (Actually I did this on Civ3, haven't done it on Civ4, yet.)

2) When I quit the game for the night and come back the next day. I will reload if I forgot something I wanted to do, but didn't remember after starting the game again. For example, one game I wanted to rush to catapults after getting Feudalism, but forgot when I quit restarted a couple of days later so I went down the Currency, Code of Laws path. Later remembered when I looked at one of the cities and noticed I had a lot of units in it, basically just costing me time and money.

I often think it a game gets to a critical fork and like playing out one way (usually the road less taken for me) after I've played out the easy or comfortable fork. It's a great way to learn.

I almost never reload because of losing a specific city, losing a battle, etc... Just doesn't seem worth it. (This isn't a right or wrong choice for me, more a consequence of my laziness.)

Just a game ago I lost my poorly defended capital to a barbarian. I ended up retaking it, but the "new" capital ended up being better placed anyway. Never would have noticed this if I reloaded.

 

[thordk]

it's a habit of mine to save before every big war... though i've never reloaded one of those

i think it's part of the fun playing civ that you have to live with the consequences of your acting. would be boring to always play games in which you're superior and never do any mistakes.

but i can remember one game of civ4 were i reloaded. i accidently clicked on the wrong decision in a diplomacy screen which led to a world war in the same turn (me and monty against the rest of the world. damn those defensive packs). neither had i've been ready for such a long lasting war nor did i want one, was going for cultural.
so i reloaded. but it felt wrong, so wrong

 

[kamigawan]

- sneak attacks by pleased civs
- missing a wonder critical to my victory strategy
- not founding the religion I was planning for
- periodically, during crucial wars

edit. Mainly things that would severely cripple my chances of winning. I like winning and I don't have all the time in the world to start over and over again since a game eats up about 5-6 hours of my life.

 

[Gaizokubanou]

I save a hell lot of times, but only reload after critical error that'll probably criple me the rest of the game if I continued.

Now I just restart the whole game instead of reloading lol. I also reload when I lose multiple 85%+ battles in a row. I usually let up to 2 slip, but when it gets me up to 3, that just gets me mad.

 

[ToFro]

In the early game, I don't tend to save that much. If I make a crucial mistake and I have to start all over, it's not so bad, I just started playing. But the longer I've played, the more I save. I know that if I had to quit after spending 5 hours on that one game, Civ probably wouldn't be fun for a few weeks... Which on second thought, might not be such a bad thing

I don't think saving-reloading should be considered cheating. I don't know about you guys, but I'm only playing for the fun of it. And I don't like to fight to the bitter end, left with only one city becayse I lost 5 in a war that I shouldn't perhaps have started

On the otherhand, when comparing scores with someone else, the one who saved-reloaded his way through the entire game will probably have a higher score

 

[BrutalusMaximus]

If you have to reload to win you are playing at too high a difficulty.

However like people say.... its YOUR game so play the way that is the most fun for YOU. If that means reloading every time the slightest thing is not perfect then have at it.

 

[biratets]

I reload when the combat odds thingie (again) gives me a 99.9% success rate and I lose the battle, which seems to happen ~9 times out of 10.

I guess there already was a thread discussing the combat odds calculator, so no further whining from me

 

[LordTerror]

I play three different types of games.

Perfection games - I try to get a game as perfect as possible (for fun). I reload goodie huts, wars (if I loose a city or something), GP rolls (sometimes), battles (if the chance to win was over 80%), and I reload the start a few times (trying to find which strategy works best for expansion), and if an AI declares war on me I try to fix with before they do. I find it fun, but it's not for everyone.

Experimentation games - Play a game to a certain point (like 1AD) then save. Play the game 3-4 different ways and see which works best.

No reloading games- Usally normal speed, very little reloading, try to be fair, etc. I usally play with standard settings, too.